Shots Fired, Officer Down! (Part Two)

Well, the keys explained why the car wasn’t moving. The wife told me that her husband wasn’t hit. Ross’s return shots had all went right through the center of the back window and out the front….unbelievably missing both occupants.

I could hear the siren of back-up Officer Fritz approaching the scene from my west. The hammer on my Smith & Wesson was ready to strike it’s mark….as the suspect started to exit the vehicle. I asked for hands and he showed me hands, no gun. He was screaming, “please, kill me!!” I would have gladly obliged him, but again, no gun.

In a split second, he turned and ran right into the path of eastbound traffic and headed across the center median of the four lane highway. Officer Fritz saw this and drove his unit across the median, in hot pursuit.

I quickly slammed handcuffs on my pregnant prisoner and left her where she sat. Ross was protected by his vehicle and not laying on the roadway. I needed to pursue the suspect and help Fritz. I got into my unit and went back to the crossover.

The suspect had crossed the westbound traffic, without becoming road-kill, and was now running towards a small grouping of houses just off the highway. I knew that if he jumped a couple of fences, he would have to come out on the street that my patrol car was fast approaching. I told the dispatcher to tell the ambulance to pull up and help Ross. I could hear screaming sirens from EVERY direction!

Looking back now, this was not a guy that wanted to commit “suicide by cop.” That is a technique where someone wants to end it, but doesn’t have the balls to do it themselves. They point a weapon towards an officer and let law enforcement do the deed. This guy was a coward, through and through.

Officer Fritz rammed the back fence of a house just as the suspect’s feet cleared the top of the chain link. Fritz jumped the fence and was now in foot pursuit. As I turned the corner and hit the street…I saw the suspect running from the side of a house, directly in front of me. I stopped, jumped out of the car and did my best impression of Lawrence Taylor. (football reference for all non-sporty girls and guys)

I hit him from the front as Officer Fritz hit him from the back….the three of us tumbled onto the gravel driveway in one big heap. Now when an officer is shot…your friend…and you don’t know yet, his condition….and you find yourself sitting on top of the suspect…well…let’s just say the suspect was injured in the “fall.” He also got the business end of my .357 pointed right between his eyes…this time he did not plead for me to kill him, but begged for mercy…..I gave it to him…mercy people, I gave him mercy.

We made the evening news the next day and watched it from the hospital room of Officer Ross. His bullet-proof vest stopped 3 rounds that were surely fatal…the fourth hit him in the left buttock region. The doctors decided to leave the round in as more damage would occur trying to remove it than it was worth. The suspect would forever more…you guessed it, literally be a pain in the ass for Officer Ross.

Officer Ross recounted that as he initially approached the vehicle on the traffic stop, the suspect had raised his weapon from his waistline, a .380 automatic pistol, and started shooting. The first shot hit Ross in the metal plate of his vest, right at his heart, and knocked him backwards. Three more hit their mark as he tumbled to the rear of the suspect vehicle. Ross stood up and fired four shots through the back window before falling where I found him.

The suspect received 60 years for his deed and would not be eligible for parole until after 15 years of that sentence because of his use of a deadly weapon. The baby born, the next day, would graduate high school before ever meeting his father. Some guys just don’t want to go to jail for DWI and for driving a stolen car.

My department, shockingly, up until that night, did not require its officers to wear bullet-proof vests, it was optional. Optional because they cost about $600.00 each and the budget did not have any room for the expense.

Officer Ross liked arresting DWI offenders and was number 2 in the department in that statistic. I often have wondered what would have happened if I had not checked out the tire store, but instead had observed a weaving tan four door, with no license plate, entering my district.

Number 1 in the department for DWI arrests was not wearing a bullet-proof vest on that fateful night in November of 1988…and that, to quote Paul Harvey,…is the “rest of the story.”

7 responses to “Shots Fired, Officer Down! (Part Two)”

Thanks for the rest of the story! I am glad Ross is only now a pain in the ass! Glad he has a ass and a wonderful co-worker that was there for him. Hopefully you all wear those bullet proof vests, our officiers don’t work without them. Do you wear one? Mona

Another great one, Jujulaw!! So glad that it wasn’t #1 in department for DWI’s. :o) I do have one question – one that has puzzled me for some time now. Why did you undo your seatbelt? So many times on TV we see officers not wearing them. L

Gr8 story. Just another gr8 story. I sure hope all the women and men out there keeping us safe are now wearing bullet proof vests–that means our soldiers on active duty, too. If we can afford to send them into harm’s way, we better be protecting them with everything possible